


Tulpa

by garbageshedinja



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Gen, kinda spooky?, mentions of antisepticeye, mentions of darkiplier, probably not spooky at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 15:06:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13883400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garbageshedinja/pseuds/garbageshedinja
Summary: Dan has always wondered why other Youtubers would create murderous personas for themselves. They seemed like more trouble than they were worth.Based on this moment: https://skipthecutscene.tumblr.com/post/170302603398/rhettjmclaughlin-god-i-hate-your-face-right





	Tulpa

**Author's Note:**

> A little theory on how Darkiplier and Antisepticeye would have come into being, coupled with the fact that the grumps just don't have those.

Dan has always wondered why other Youtubers would create murderous personas for themselves. Especially when they seemed so troublesome. People clamored for more Antisepticeye or Darkiplier ad nauseam. Why bother? What was the point? Mark made plenty of jokes about Darkiplier, and the various otherworldly shenanigans he got up to, and Dan understood that it was fun, but he also sometimes came uncomfortably close to referring to Darkiplier as if he were a physical being. Like he was an actual entity that Mark had to deal with or something.

He’d seen it suggested that maybe those personas did exist in a way, if only as an outlet for the frustration of their originators. He supposed he could understand that.  Shit goes bad, you imagine some dark version of yourself - a demon with your face using a name based on yours - and they can go and vent your frustrations on a fictional world. And maybe their fans’ obsessions with them didn’t bother them. It was all harmless. Just an outlet for anger

But Dan doesn’t really have a lot of those feelings himself. Generally there aren’t a lot of things that make him mad. That’s always been more Arin’s department. Dan was slow to anger and quick to lose it - it just wasn’t a nice feeling and he didn’t want to keep it around any longer than he had to.

But right now, he was experiencing a lot of unpleasant things. Adding an emotion to the mix certainly couldn’t make things worse. He felt disgusting. His hair was covered in cold, disgusting gunk. which slid down his costume and soaked in, pinning the mess right to his skin. He’s miserable and there’s a pit of irritation growing every time Arin makes a joke about it, fed even more by the laughter around him. There’s something else there too, something at the core of it all, making it dig it’s claws in and stretch roots deeper than it should go. He knows that they’re meant to entertaining right now, but he also feels like someone barfed on him. He just wants this over so that he can go home and shower.

“Oh gross,” Arin says, lips curling up under his fake mustache. “I got some coins stuck on me. Ewww.”

Dan glares, the gross ball of emotions pulsing like a second heart in his gut.

By the time it’s over, Dan is barely stopping himself from snapping every time someone looks at him. It’s an almost alien feeling to him, this inescapable aggression. And Arin is there, smiling and laughing and generally enjoying the novelty of people who haven’t gotten tired of their jokes yet. And Dan -

Dan wants to  _hurt him._

It’s a sudden urge, an intense impulse that almost steals his breath, almost guides his legs across the room and wraps his hands around Arin’s throat. It passes before he even really comprehends it. It startles him out of the foggy sort of frustration that had stretched over his mind. Almost like waking up from a sleepy daydream, suddenly aware of the world around him. He looks around to see if anyone noticed him. None of the crew are even looking in his direction, but over in the corner he sees…  _something._

It’s a man, or at least shaped like one.Tall, with a mess of long hair and hands maybe a little too big for his body. Wearing a black leather jacket and tight jeans and a faded band t-shirt. A man with a face just like his, right down to the scar cutting his eyebrow in two.

It’s him.

The thing over in the corner - it’s - a copy of him - it’s just like him - it’s something  _wearing his face_. It catches his eye and grins with too many teeth. It presses a finger to it’s lips as if to tell him to stay quiet. It winks at him. And then it’s gone as if it had never been there in the first place.

A cold shock runs through his heart, and he looks to Arin, and Arin -

Arin is staring right at him and Dan knows (hopes) with everything he is that Arin saw it too.

It occurs to him that maybe Mark didn’t create Darkiplier, and maybe Sean didn’t make Antisepticeye. And that there might be a reason why Arin lets his anger out so easily.

Later, he will convince himself that it was nothing. An intrusive thought followed by a trick of the light. But he watches for it to happen again, just in case.


End file.
